My Pitching Portfolio

Last week I shared my Hitting Portfolio, detailing the hitters I have across my 16 leagues by position. I was going to do the entire portfolio initially, but the hitters ran pretty deep so I decided to split the pitching off as a separate post. Let’s begin with starting pitchers. I have at least 73 starters on one club, 33 of which appear just once. The sheer quantity is inflated by being a part of two draft-and-hold 50 round NFBC leagues. We are digging deep by the end of those so there are some guys who wouldn’t be rostered in a lot of other league formats. But let’s start at the top with the guys I have the most.

I ended up with three pitchers on at least six rosters. All are from the American League which isn’t too surprising since ALers are eligible for 15 of my 16 rosters (while NLers could only hit 12 of the 16) and I’m sure the names won’t come as much of a surprise if you‘ve listened to the podcast or read the SP Guide. So here they are:

FIVE+ INSTANCES

7	Shane Greene
6	Phil Hughes
6	T.J. House

See? I told you that you wouldn’t be surprised. I really liked what I saw from Greene as a Yankee last year and then I was thrilled when the Tigers traded for him this offseason. He has an impressive arsenal, well beyond what you’d expect from a 15^th rounder, with a 94-95 MPH fastball that he can also sink without losing much of anything velocity-wise.

He backs those pitches up with a high-80s cutter, a low-80s slider, and a mid-to-high 80s change piece. The changeup will be the key to his success this year as he didn’t always have an answer for lefties in his 79 innings last year. It looked good in his season debut against Minnesota. He threw it 10 times in 44 pitches to southpaws (23%) and netted four outs with two on the ground and two in the air.

Hughes has struggled a bit through two starts, though he doesn’t look too different from his 2014-self. We all worried that he wouldn’t be able to maintain the obscene walk rate from 2014 (1.9%), but so far it’s the home run rate he’s been unable to duplicate. He had a career-best 0.7 HR/9 rate last year, allowing just 16 homers (same as his walk count) in 209.7 innings.

The Tigers clipped him for two and the White Sox added a third. However, he also allowed two homers in his season debut last year and still had the really strong season. I’m not worried after two starts. If Hughes could find just a bit more command, he could be elite. Right now he is a great example of the difference between command and control.

House was someone I was able to roster regularly at a very low cost because I was investing in him prior to him getting that fifth starter’s role. Remember, Gavin Floyd was brought in and expected to secure a spot which left House on the outside looking in after considering Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, and Salazar, too.

Floyd suffered another injury and Salazar would eventually lose his spot in Spring Training leaving House and McAllister in the rotation. House had the great misfortune of opening against the Tigers, like Hughes, and it did not go well. He had avoided the division foe in his 19 starts last year. It’s one start, I’m not deterred on my belief that he will be a strong asset at the backend of fantasy rotations.

FOUR INSTANCES

I got a handful of guys on four different rosters. I was very excited about all of these guys and found myself getting them at what I believed to be discounted prices. Well, it’s been a mixed bag so far with one guy toast for at least two months due to injury and another toast for half the season due to a suspension.

4	Michael Wacha
4	Wily Peralta
4	Drew Pomeranz
4	Derek Holland
4	Ervin Santana

So Holland and Santana are already debacles, but I still love the other three guys I’ve got on four clubs. Wacha is my NL Cy Young pick. I know Kershaw is supposed to be the auto pick there, but I truly believe Wacha has the stuff to pull the upset. He has a ridiculous four-pitch arsenal with the fastball, the elite changeup, and a breaker for each side of the plate: curve for lefties and slider for righties. If he performs how I think he can, he’ll cover the disaster of Holland/Santana in the leagues where I have him and one of those.

Peralta and Pomeranz are still in the development phase and I’m hoping for some steps forward with both. Peralta’s issue has been lefties (similar to Greene) and his changeup remains a work in progress. He’s had bouts of success with the backdoor slider against lefties, too. I also think he has strikeout upside thanks to that slider, not to mention the fact that he has a mid-90s fastball.

It’s hard to give much weight to Pomeranz’s work in Colorado given how awful a fit he was there, but he was in the midst of a breakout last year before a self-inflicted injury derailed him. He punched a chair after a disaster start against the Rangers and cost himself two-plus months. He really only has the two pitches (fastball, curveball), but the curve is so ridiculous that it might be enough to stifle righties even without a change as they managed just a .234 OPS against it in 47 PA last year.

This quintet is working from behind to pay off big time because of Holland and Santana, but the ceilings of the other three leave me confident.

THREE INSTANCES

3	Corey Kluber
3	Chase Anderson
3	Kevin Gausman
3	J.A. Happ
3	Raisel Iglesias

My three-pack players are pretty interesting. Obviously, I have the one ace in Kluber, but then four backend gambles who I liked enough to invest in solidly. Early on, one is in the bullpen and another was just shipped out to Triple-A, but it’s a looong season. Of the three Kluber shares, only one was a keeper league so I was willing to pay the premium to watch him back up his Cy Young effort. So far, so good.

Gausman is my favorite of the remaining four so I’m definitely bummed that he lost out to Ubaldo Jimenez and got stuck in the bullpen, but he just hasn’t shown a reliable breaker so he’s working with two pitches as a starter. It looks like he’s using a curve out of the bullpen, so hopefully he continues to hone it so it can become a weapon. Five of the first nine have gone for a ball and he’s only thrown it to righties. It’s fine if it can become a weapon against them, but he needs it more for lefties.

TWO INSTANCES

I have 28 different guys at least twice. Instead of just dropping them altogether, I broke them up into stars, mid-tier guys, and gambles.

Stars

2	David Price
2	Matt Harvey
2	Gerrit Cole
2	Jeff Samardzija
2	Carlos Carrasco
2	Gio Gonzalez
2	Masahiro Tanaka

If you want to assume it’s Kershaw and then the rest (which is completely fine and how I operate as well) fight for second, then you better believe Price has every bit the upside needed to take that two-spot over the likes of Felix Hernandez, Max Scherzer, and Chris Sale – the guys who most often went two behind Kershaw. Thus with Price going a full round after Hernandez, 10 picks after Scherzer, and four behind Sale, he’s almost a relative bargain. If last year’s strikeouts are for real (27%), then he might even be able to dethrone Kershaw.

I caught Harvey Fever late in draft season which was probably the worst time to do so as his price was peaking at that time, although he wasn’t ever really much of a “bargain” as I believe he spent the whole season inside the top 15 starters. His electric stuff in Spring Training was one thing, but the command and control being on point so quickly was quite another. That is what really started to sell me on the extra time off giving Harvey a chance to be a star in year one after Tommy John. I’m jinxing him to have a 5 ER outing tonight, aren’t I? Dammit. (Actually, this will go up after the start on early-Wednesday morning, but you can laugh if I did jinx it).

Cole was my favorite breakout pitcher going in the late-teens… well, when he was going there at least. At the height of draft season, he seemed to be more of the 14^th or 15^th arm off the board as opposed to the 18^th-20^th we were seeing in early-March. It’s hard to get a major share of any star arm unless you’re keeping him across several leagues or just committed to taking that second or third starter regardless of what’s available. With that said, I’m thrilled to have a couple pieces of all of these stars.

Well, maybe not as thrilled on one of them. Tanaka was another arm I started gaining interest in later in draft season. His command wasn’t as crisp as 2014 during Spring Training, but he was missing low and avoiding danger so I figured he’d be successful as long as he was pitching. I liked the idea of gambling on him staying healthy all season and getting an ace-level arm as the 25^th or so starter off the board. Plus, he showed last year that he didn’t even need a full season to deliver big value so even 120 innings could be very useful.

Gonzalez is the forgotten Nat. I think he went for a relative discount because of his rotation mates. He was tracking as the 29^th starter off of the board this draft season, but I had him 10 spots higher. He’s been slowly improving his walk rate year-over-year and had logged 32+ starts four straight seasons prior to 2014. He has great mechanics, an excellent strikeout rate, and should be past the shoulder inflammation that slowed him in 2014 and relegated him to 159 innings. We’ve seen the ridiculous upside (2012 when he finished third in Cy Young voting) and he’s established a solid floor. Last year’s 3.57 ERA came with a 1.20 WHIP and a 3.03 FIP.

Mid-Tier

2	Andrew Cashner
2	Jose Quintana
2	Collin McHugh
2	Drew Hutchison
2	R.A. Dickey
2	Drew Smyly
2	Kyle Lohse
2	Chris Tillman

These guys are the moneymakers. Having multiple guys pop here is what delivers the big seasons for your fantasy teams. I mean, the stars almost have to click given how much you invested, but these guys in the mid-tier offer major surplus value potential. And at the same time, they won’t destroy your season if it doesn’t come to fruition. The truth is no one single player flopping will kill your season automatically, not even your first-rounder.

Cashner has top-15 upside as far as I’m concerned. We haven’t seen the sustained, elite strikeout rate from him as a starter just yet, but it’s really not for a lack of stuff. He has a ridiculous three-pitch mix fronted by his high-90s heater that is drawing more swings-and-misses this year which has yielded a 19% strikeout rate with the pitch. It’s very early, but that’s up from 17% last season.

But honestly it’s the slider that will drive a surge in strikeout rate. He was slightly above average in strikeout rate with it last year (32%, avg. 29%), but it’s showing a lot more bite through two starts with seven strikeouts in nine plate appearances. The slider has been a driving force behind Cashner’s 15 strikeouts through two starts. His only flaw so far this season was Adrian Gonzalez blasting him for three homers in his season debut.

There wasn’t a real tax on the two Houston breakouts from 2014 (Keuchel is the other) and because of that I’m surprised I wound up with just two shares of McHugh and got skunked on Keuchel. It’s not that I wasn’t bought in on both, I guess the way that the drafts and auctions played out, I was in need of pitching when they did finally go, even accounting for the fact that I was willing to take them higher than 45^th (McHugh) and 53^rd (Keuchel) starters off the board.

Sometimes you just miss out on guys even if you’re sold on their performance. For me, that’s where DFS comes in. I’ve already had Keuchel in both of his starts, though I was under-invested for the Texas start because it looked like rain was going to hit the Metroplex that night. Yes, we’re now discussing my individual lineup picks of DFS games THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN PLAYED OUT.

Obviously these aren’t all breakout guys. Dickey, Lohse, and probably Tillman (though I definitely hold out hope for another level) are pretty much are, but I’m OK with that. In fact, that stability is why I got them in most cases. Dickey was rostered in a point league that rewards volume and a quality starts league.

He’s logged 208 innings or more in each of the last four seasons and has logged an above average QS% in each of his five years of relevance since breaking out in 2010 with the Mets. He was well above the 53-54% average in four of the five seasons and he has a 69% in the five years all told. Lohse was drafted as a stabilizer in a league where I had chosen to go risky with some bullpen picks (Doolittle and Jansen) in the later rounds so I couldn’t afford too many lottery ticket arms.

Gambles

2	Brett Anderson
2	Jesse Hahn
2	Anthony DeSclafani
2	Kendall Graveman
2	David Buchanan
2	Rubby de la Rosa
2	Vance Worley
2	Robbie Erlin
2	Jon Gray
2	Carlos Rodon
2	Danny Salazar
2	Nick Tropeano
2	Erasmo Ramirez

We are barely a week in and you see why these are Gambles. Many have already had their outlook dimmed from Spring Training when we love to dream on the upside of young arms. Graveman got his face caved in during his opener, Buchanan was pretty rough, too, Rubby needed a baseline quality start on Monday to bring his ERA down to 7.15, Gray was trounced in the ABQ, Worley was blasted, Salazar was sent down, and Erasmo is getting smoked as a reliever.

At least Anderson isn’t hurt yet, Hahn has been fine in his two starts (but where are my Ks?), DeSclafani was strong in his debut – including excellent work prior to the rain delay, Rodon was filthy (9 Ks) in his Triple-A debut while Danks wasn’t and Noesi walked six, Salazar was electric in Columbus while House and McAllister were smoked by the Tigers, and Tropeano also got off to a nice start and could find a spot in the Angels’ rotation soon. He might’ve gotten Tuesday night’s start that is going to Drew Rucinski had he been on schedule, but he just threw on the 11^th.

So the gambles still feel pretty “gambly”, but in no way, shape, or form am I expecting to hit on all of these so they should feel that way. Frankly, if three became stars the rest could bust and it’d be an overall win.

ONE INSTANCE

I got 31 different guys at least once, but I’m obviously not going to discuss every single one. I’m going to show you the 20 best/most intriguing (you’ll see where the line goes from “best” to “intriguing” pretty clearly):

Clayton Kershaw

Max Scherzer

Stephen Strasburg

Zack Greinke

Alex Cobb

Anibal Sanchez

Michael Pineda

James Paxton

Justin Verlander

Wade Miley

Mike Fiers

Jason Hammel

John Lackey

Nathan Eovaldi

Taijuan Walker

Carlos Martinez

Daniel Norris

Eddie Butler

Tyler Matzek

Danny Duffy

• Collette and I took Kershaw third overall in LABR Mixed, I don’t think I got another chance to take him the rest of draft season.
• I was really hoping to get a piece of the entire Nationals rotation, but got shutout on Zimmermann and Fister.
• Cobb would’ve definitely found his way on 2+ teams if not for the early injury. I’m really high on his talent and think he can be elite, but he hasn’t shown any measure of durability yet. Once it was clear he was going to start on the DL and there wasn’t a discount commensurate with that news, I cooled on drafting him. He’ll be a DFS staple once he’s back, though.
• I think Pineda has ridiculous upside, but the health profile was enough to scare me off from multiple investments.
• Miley is shifting to the tougher league by going to Boston, but I buy his strikeout jump from 2014 and feel like we could even see more.
• Walker imploded in his season opener, but that really only makes me want to see if I can find someone panicking and buy low as opposed to move away from my single share of him.
• Martinez’s changeup was great in his season debut. That is a major key to his success in 2015 so if it is in fact progressing, he could be a huge.
• I got a piece of the two Rockies who I think could actually do something this year, though it likely won’t be smooth sailing throughout thanks to that home park and the command issues of both.

There is it, that’s my pitching portfolio after the draft. It will evolve throughout the season and I honestly don’t intend to keep track of it all year, but I do like seeing how it comes out after the draft and then comparing it with my final year rosters.